Some developing economies continue to be an attractive investment destination following the crisis. But while business is booming, many workers are getting left behind.
Rising inequalities, unemployment and underemployment, skills’ gaps and weakened industrial relations continue to characterize the recoveries of many Southern countries.
To discuss these issues, experts from Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean convened a panel at the UN on 23 May entitled South-South Dialogue: the Role of Decent Work in Sustainable Development, Perspectives from Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.
ILO Special Representative to the UN, Ms Jane Stewart, opened the discussion, noting that access to decent work had ranked high among the top four priorities identified by the MyWorld survey with over two million votes registered. The survey is one of several global consultations guiding the formulation of the UN’s new development agenda.
“The expectations of the UN are very high,” said Ms Stewart. “Every year 40 million young people reach the working age and knock on the labour market doors. And we know that no post-2015 development agenda won’t be credible if it does not adequately address the jobs challenge.”
Argentina’s Permanent Representative to the UN, H.E. Ms Maria Cristina Perceval said, “The workplace plays a fundamental role in creating and perpetuating inequalities that characterize Latin American societies,” and the promotion of “decent work for all, including for women and young people, is essential for reducing poverty, tackling inequalities and for achieving inclusive and sustainable development.”
To remedy the structural asymmetries in society, Ms Perceval said macroeconomic policies should be linked together with social policies and that concerted action was needed at both the national and global levels. “We are talking not only of promoting equality of opportunity, but equality of opportunity conditions for all women and all men.” she said. “We need to create those conditions in which boys and girls can imagine receiving equal treatment and achieving equitable results.”
Argentina has embraced national policies designed to promote decent work, including the re-launch of the National Council for Employment, Productivity and the Adjustable, which includes participation from workers and actors of the private sector at the national and local levels.
H.E. Mr Jean-Francis Zinsou, Permanent Representative of Benin to the UN, who also serves as Chair of the Group of Least Developed Countries, spoke of decent work deficits in Africa, particularly acute among the continent's burgeoning population of young people.
“Africa is a region with an estimated 20 million young people aged between 15 and 24—the youngest population of the world, which is growing rapidly,” Mr Zinsou said. “It is becoming better educated, and current trends suggest Africa will become a reservoir of human capital that will represent a real asset for productive sectors of the economy, if [young people] are endowed with the necessary skills relevant to the labour market.”
In addition to large numbers of unemployed, Mr Zinsou stated that underemployment affected large portions of the population, and represented a form of “disguised unemployment” that contributes to the precarity of approximately 53 million young people engaged in vulnerable work. “In Benin, we have recognized these challenges, and begun to look at strategies to turn job seekers into job creators,” he said. “We have been encouraging the international community to mobilize the resources to support this shift in approach towards youth employment and build a microcredit system that promotes access to funding for anyone who wants to undertake an SME.”
Mr Zinsou described complementary initiatives, such as universal health coverage that protected business investments against out-of-pocket health risks and incentives for rural business development through the creation of new agricultural technologies. Reference was also made to the need to strengthen and expand social protection floors.
Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Ms Alicia Bárcena, spoke about the underlying economic factors influencing the state of decent work in her region.
“We cannot consider employment as a social issue—it is an economic issue,” Ms Bárcena said. “The world today is experiencing one of the toughest cases of inequality we have seen in generations, because capital has taken a very easy road, while society has, in a way, been punishing labour and been giving more incentives to capital.”
One example she noted was the outsize role of extractives in many Latin American and African economies. “We just finished study, and have found that for a one-million-dollar foreign investment for a new mining venture, we can expect these companies to create just one direct employment and four indirect ones,” she said. “It is difficult to think we will not have anything to offer to young people and that the concentration of wealth will continue regardless of what governments do through fiscal policy or public expenditure.”
Ms Bárcena said current trends were not something that global markets were suited to correct. “Today, foreign companies are trying to negotiate terms with countries that will give them the best conditions, the lowest wages, the fewest fiscal contributions,” she said. To protect against what could become a race to the bottom among nations, she suggested there needed to be “a global, collective negotiation or compact that sets out a minimum social floor.”
Recovery in Africa in terms of growth, has been largely jobless
Mr. Aeneas Chuma
ILO Assistant Director-General and Regional Director for Africa, Mr Aeneas Chuma spoke about issues affecting decent work and employment generation within the context of global value chains.
“Recovery in Africa, in terms of growth, has been largely jobless,” said Mr Chuma. “A lot of the growth was under pinned by the export of minerals and other primary products with little value addition,” he said. “We cannot continue in this way, and we see opportunities for decent work in value addition more than the exportation of primary products, which tend to export jobs rather than create better and decent work.”
Mr Chuma also spoke of the importance of social dialogue and inclusive consultation in the policymaking process. “Because a lot of these pressing issues cannot be addressed by governments alone, there needs to be a social compact involving other players,” he said. “Government has a role to play in creating the rules of engagement, but employers have a responsibility in creating employment and promoting entrepreneurship, and workers also have a role to play.”
However, he warned of a growing tension and shrinking space for workers to associate in the region. “There is conflict around the quality of the growth itself and opportunities are getting fewer and fewer,” he said. “A lot of gains have been captured by management rather than by workers." Mr Chuma also defended the need to extend social protection floors and to adopt decent work policies to migrant workers.
Regarding the formulation of the post-2015 development framework, Mr Chuma said that a focus on employment and decent jobs was critical to have as an explicit goal. “This cannot be left to chance,” he said. “You can have growth, but you can also have inequality; you can have growth without jobs.”
The panel was convened ahead of the High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on the topic “Achieving poverty eradication through full employment and decent work for all in the post-2015 development agenda.” Themes from the discussions will inform the opinions and inputs gathered in the deliberations leading up to the adoption of a new development agenda by the General Assembly in 2015.
